


Did you hear the one about the Detective and the Doctor?

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, BAMF John Watson, BAMF Sherlock, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Little bit of post Reichenbach, No Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The Detective and the Doctor saved each other” - Sherlock Holmes and John Watson</p><p>The story of Sherlock and John, shown in a series of random situations with different characters. Let the fluff and angst begin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Did you hear the one about the Detective and the Doctor?

**Author's Note:**

> So I had a sudden flash of fanfiction inspiration and spent most of this afternoon writing this.
> 
> I don't own any of these characters, I'm afraid, I just use them for my own stories.
> 
> There are a few spoilers for Sherlock, just to warn you.

**“The Detective saved the Doctor” – John Watson**

John lay on his bed, adrenaline still coursing through him. His head was buzzing, but shooting that cab driver was the best thing he’d done since he returned from Afghanistan. The morning before, he wouldn’t even have dreamed that his life would change with just a wink and a short sentence from the most brilliant man he had ever met.

He smiled as he thought about Sherlock. They had gone out for Chinese after the case was over, leaving Lestrade and Mycroft gaping behind them, and it was the best meal John had ever had. Maybe it was the knowledge that there was one less crazy murderer on the streets, or the fact that he hadn’t picked up his cane in hours. Whatever it was, John wouldn’t have swapped his mood for the world and, as he looked up and saw Sherlock smirking across at him, he had a hunch that the feeling was mutual.

He let out a short bark of laughter. Just one week ago he had been sitting on his bed in his miserable, bare room, forcing himself to stay awake to avoid the nightmares. In short, John had been falling apart. And, he thought, this new life solving cases with Sherlock might – just might – be the first step to putting himself back together again.

 

**“The Doctor saved the Detective” – Sherlock Holmes**

Sherlock sat on the sofa, staring at the cup of tea that John had sub-consciously placed in front of him before going up to bed. Usually after a case he would collapse into the flat and not move for hours, but his mind was processing new data in a way that was frighteningly new to him. He ran his hands through his hair, making it even messier than usual, and shut his eyes, leaning back and resting his head on the cushion, hands steepled beneath his chin.

John had intrigued him since the moment he set eyes on him. He was a puzzle, with his military posture but his doctor’s face, and his psychosomatic limp that told Sherlock about a mind that wasn’t nearly as calm as the exterior suggested. Normally, Sherlock would have instantly torn him to shreds, but there was something about this man that made him stop and think. He was a potential flatmate and, as potential flatmates went, this one wasn’t too dull at all. But it wasn’t even that – it was the steady gaze that, even as Sherlock reeled off his deductions before leaving the room, hadn’t faltered for a second.

Sherlock had fixed John’s limp, sure, and reintroduced him to a life of danger and madness, but he wasn’t the only one that had been broken before. Sherlock was already feeling a new kind of life within him, after years of solitude and loneliness that he hadn’t even realised he had. It was like John was a new drug, intoxicating and exciting.

But this drug saved lives. He smiled wryly.

‘Trust me to get addicted to the one drug that might just change me the most,’ he thought, and slid down into a deep sleep, unable to hold on any longer.

 

**“The Doctor is nicer than the Detective…” – Molly Hooper**

Molly had first seen that nice Dr Watson when she had brought up coffee for Sherlock. She hadn’t really taken the situation in; she assumed that he was one of Sherlock’s clients, or just someone visiting the labs. He seemed the type – quiet, unassuming, a small smile sent her way when she turned briefly to look at him.

Then Mike Stamford had run into her on the stairs and explained the idea of Sherlock, _Sherlock Holmes,_ having a potential flatmate.

“Oh,” she had said, mind reeling from the unexpected information, “I don’t suppose he’ll last very long. No – I didn’t mean like Sherlock would kill him or something – just – Sherlock, he isn’t that good at making friends – and if they don’t know each other – not that I’m saying that Sherlock isn’t friendly or anything-”

Mike had cut her off with a chuckle and a pat on the arm.

“I’m pretty sure John can hold his own in situation with anybody. He had half the university falling at his feet, and I’ve heard some war stories and a half about his time in the Army. If there’s anyone who can tame Sherlock Holmes, it’s John Watson.”

Molly imagined John as a powerful character who could shout down Sherlock and live to tell the tale. She had a hard time linking it to the small, broken man she had seen just a few minutes earlier.

The next time Molly saw John and Sherlock, she couldn’t imagine what Mike was talking about. By the time that John was a regular visitor, coming along on most of Sherlock’s cases, Molly was completely stumped. John was lovely.

He frowned at Sherlock about a month later when Sherlock asked her to fetch coffee, volunteering to go himself.

“Oh – it’s okay,” Molly stuttered, “I’ll go, I don’t mind…”

“I’ll come with you, help you carry the cups. Be back in a sec, Sherlock.”

Sherlock grunted an affirmative, his eyes clamped over the microscope, and John followed Molly out of the room, looking around him in interest.

“I used to go here, you know,” John said absently, “taught me everything I know.”

“Not everything, I suppose, I can’t imagine they taught you how to deal with Sherlock,” Molly laughed nervously, but trailed off when John failed to join in. He was frowning slightly, looking forward intently, as if he wasn’t really listening.

“I mean, you’re completely different. He’s so – so – so, distant, while you’re a normal bloke, I mean I wouldn’t even notice you normally whereas he stands out, you know – not that I meant you’re boring or anything, I didn’t mean that, I just-”

“I think Sherlock and I are a lot more similar than people think,” John interrupted, a small smile on his lips, “we both live for danger. I’m just a lot better at hiding it, I suppose.”

Molly was silent for a minute, thinking about it.

“Yes, well – you’re a lot nicer than Sherlock.”

John laughed, a slow chuckle, not the childish giggle he shared with Sherlock, or the loud barks he did when he was surprised, a smile beginning to spread across his face.

“Yes, I suppose I am.”

 

**“The Detective is nicer than the Doctor!” – Sally Donovan**

Sally’s week had been, quite frankly, awful, and she really didn’t have the patience for seeing the Freak and Doctor Watson walking up the path towards her, a smirk already on the Freak’s face as he no doubt deduced every fact about her rocky relationship with Anderson and her sleepless night on her sister’s sofa.

“Sally,” John greeted her quietly.

“Doctor Watson, Freak,” she replied airily, already beginning to turn towards the crime scene as she lifted up the police tape for them to enter. Sherlock sensed, rather than saw, John bristle beside him, but he wasn’t entirely sure why.

Neither of them ducked under Sally’s arm, choosing instead to lift up the tape themselves and duck under. John bristled even further as Sally carried on talking.

“Victim is a nineteen-year-old male, found by his girlfriend, he went out to buy some beer and was attacked on the way home by a group of youths, though being the freak that you are you probably already know that-”

“No,” Sherlock stated in a bored tone, “bring the girlfriend in for questioning, she killed him and planted the body.”

Sally looked taken aback.

“Oh, really? And you have evidence for that, freak? Because you couldn’t possibly tell that from just one glance. You haven’t even looked at the body properly.”

Sighing, Sherlock narrowed his eyes and began to speak, quickly, in the monotone voice he always used for deductions.

“The wound is clean, so it’s been done with a single sharp blade - someone has killed this boy with intent, they _meant_ to do it. Look at the murder weapon, it’s a kitchen knife, and judging from how clean the areas that are devoid of blood are, it’s pretty obvious that it was washed just seconds before the attack, so it happened in a house. You can clearly see that this isn’t where the murder took place, the blood is scattered around too evenly, someone tried to make it _look_ like the scene of a crime but they didn’t do a very good job of it. The knife was driven straight under the ribs and into the internal organs - whoever did this knew exactly what they were aiming for, so it could be a professional killer, or a doctor perhaps. A professional killer is highly improbable – this is a nineteen year old student, nobody would hire somebody to kill _him_. So, doctor it must be, or somebody studying in the art of medicine. The victim’s long-term girlfriend is a medical student-”

“Okay, freak, you’re guessing now, there’s no possible way you could know what this boy’s girlfriend is studying,” Sally scoffed.

“There’s a slight stickiness you can see on the victim’s hands and arms – he has had plastering and bandages on them, but no wounds. Clearly, somebody has been practising on him: must be the girlfriend. Coupled with the fact that the hand marks on his face are closer to the marks gained in a domestic fight than a mugging, it is abundantly clear that they had an argument and – in a fit of rage – the girlfriend stabbed him in the kitchen and tried to cover it up by putting the body here, getting changed, and then ‘finding’ it. You have your killer. Arrest her.”

“Alright, freak,” Sally drawled, “you shouldn’t get so excited over a killing, you know.”

“Sherlock was right,” John said quietly, but the tone was enough to make Sally and Sherlock’s heads snap around to look at him. He was standing, arms crossed, a look of silent anger in his eyes.

“I’m always right,” Sherlock joked weakly, unsure for once about where John was taking this.

“We doctors know _exactly_ where the areas are for putting people in _excruciating_ pain.”

A slow smile began to spread across Sherlock’s face as he realised what John was doing. Sally’s smile had been wiped off her face, understanding dawning in her eyes as she took a step back from the now menacing doctor.

“It’s quite funny, really. Teach people how to heal, and you teach them how to harm in the same breath. The army teaches you how to inflict pain on others too – I should know, of course, I was in it, killed several men in my day.”

“You… You’re a doctor. You were an army doctor…” Sally looked terrified.

“Oh, I had bad days. The soldiers you serve with in the army, they’re your friends. And when people are trying to kill your friends… Well, you act pretty quickly. At least, I do anyway. If there was a hypothetical situation in which someone was, I don’t know, insulting my friend for no apparent reason when all they were doing was being helpful and useful, I guess I could act pretty rashly.”

The meaning behind John’s words was clear. Sally muttered an apology under her breath and walked quickly over to where the rest of the team was standing. She was even prepared to put up with being near Anderson to get away from Sherlock and his disturbingly scary companion.

“Jesus Christ,” she murmured to Lestrade, “John is a right nutter.”

“Oh, he finally snapped, did he? You’ve had that coming for you for months. He’s a good bloke, just sticks by his guns… Literally…”

“What do you mean, _literally_?” Sally sounded slightly hysterical, “ _is that man in possession of a gun? Are you crazy? He. Is. A. Madman._ ”

She took a few breaths to calm down, and looked into the amused face of her Detective Inspector.

“Greg. Look. I can testify for a fact that Sherlock bloody Holmes is nicer than John. I’ve had first-hand experience. And I don’t ever want to face him again.”

 

**“The Doctor and the Detective are bloody terrifying” – Chris the rather stupid criminal**

“We need to run!” Gareth burst into the room that Chris and Baker were playing cards in, panting noisily

“Gareth,” hissed Baker menacingly, “you’re meant to be guarding the hostage.”

“We need to – we need to – we need – you don’t know who we’re dealing with here!”

“He’s Sherlock Holmes. We know exactly who we’ve got. So unless that tall lanky git in the chair has miraculously transformed into a different person in the half hour since I last saw him, I think you’re mistaken.”

“I’m the only one who’s allowed to call him a tall lanky git,” came a voice from the door. The men’s heads snapped round and Chris and Baker’s eyes bulged as they saw Holmes and a shorter, stockier man with dirty-blonde hair blocking the exit.

The short man was holding a gun.

“I tried to warn you,” blubbered Gareth, “you weren’t listening.”

All of the four other people in the room told him to shut up, and his complaints died down into a quite mumbling. Suddenly, Chris jumped up and dived at Holmes, trying to take him by surprise and escape. Out of nowhere, before he could even reach the detective, a strong hand grabbed the back of his shirt and threw him down onto the floor. A shoe pressed down on his throat, and he stared up into the eyes of the short man, terrified.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t,” John said through gritted teeth, “after you drugged and kidnapped my best friend, tied him up on a chair and left him with, quite frankly, the worst guarding I’ve ever seen.”

“It was certainly shoddy,” Sherlock remarked cooly, “rope ties around my hands, tying them in front of me rather than behind, not even bothering to tie my feet, not to mention the fact that you didn’t even check me for communication devices.”

“It’s like they didn’t even try, isn’t it, Sherlock? I’ve seen better knots tied in a swimming pool changing room,” John replied, smirking slightly, but Sherlock looked slightly pained, the reminder of what had happened with Moriarty a few months ago only too fresh on his mind.

Baker took advantage of the situation to run at Sherlock, a knife suddenly flashing in his hand. John lifted his foot off Chris’ neck and drove it in to Baker’s side as he flew past, but Chris took advantage of his slight freedom and managed to pull himself to his feet, drawing back an arm to punch John in the face. Before he made contact, Sherlock grabbed him around the neck and pushed him up against the wall, as John disarmed Baker and threw a few punches that managed to knock the thug out cold. Chris whimpered at the menacing look in Sherlock’s eyes. It was the last thing he saw before waking up in hospital with several broken bones about nine hours later.

When he woke up, a tanned, silver-haired man was sitting beside him.

“I’m here to ask a few questions,” he said grimly, “D.I. Lestrade.”

Chris groaned as a wave of pain washed over him.

“Whatever you want, you can have it. I’ll admit to anything. Just don’t make me face those maniacs again. They’re terrifying.”

 

**“The Doctor is good for the Detective” – Mycroft Holmes**

Mycroft looked up as one of his assistants walked briskly into the room.

“Ah. Carol.”

He warily accepted the document she held out to him and placed it down on his desk, waiting for her to leave the room before briefly placing his head in his hands. Carol was the woman designated with keeping an eye on his trouble-attracting little brother and his flatmate, Dr Watson, and he dreaded to see what could be in the report.

Sighing, he turned over the first page, and blinked in surprise. It was a picture of John and Sherlock.

That was nothing new, of course: they were rarely apart these days. It was the expression on Sherlock’s face that threw him off. Sherlock was smiling – a full, radiating smile, straight at John, who was smiling back, a fork of spaghetti half way to his mouth.

Looking closer at the picture, Mycroft was even more taken aback. Sherlock also had a plate of food in front of him, and from the position of his fork and the arrangement of the food on the plate, it was clear that he had actually been eating it. He was on a case, it said clearly at the side of the report – _Mr Holmes and Dr Watson, eating at Angelo’s Italian while investigating a spate of poisonings_ – which begged a serious question. Why was Sherlock eating on a case?

He quickly delved into the report.

_19:13 – S. Holmes outlined plan to ambush killer_

_19:14 – J. Watson suggested dinner, SH agreed and walked to Angelo’s with him_

_19:20 – JW ordered spaghetti bolognaise and lasagne_

_19:21 – short argument – JW appears to have ordered food for SH without consent_

_19:35 – food arrived, JW ate, SH did not_

_19:40 – SH started eating. Attached picture was taken._

Mycroft read the rest of the report, but barely took it in while trying to process the new information about his brother. There were three things that were wrong here – firstly, that Sherlock had eaten on a case; second, that John had managed to persuade him to do something he didn’t want to do; and lastly, that Sherlock had given John a smile of the kind that Mycroft had never seen before in his life. He decided to process his thoughts one at a time.

For once, Mycroft was at a loss. Dr Watson’s involvement with Sherlock was serious, Mycroft had known that from the minute that his spying money had been turned down, but he hadn’t picked up on the gradual way in which John had changed Sherlock’s habits, made him healthier, more sociable, more… human.

The British Government sighed. Dr Watson was good for Sherlock. If only there was someone like that out there for both Holmes brothers.

 

**“The Doctor made the Detective a better man” – Greg Lestrade**

Greg had first noticed it a few months after John had entered into Sherlock’s hectic life.

They had all been standing around a body in a car park when a young policewoman had walked up, eyes red. Her mother had died the night before, but she still insisted on coming in to work. Sherlock drew himself up to his full height and looked her up and down, opening his mouth, clearly on the brink of making a ruthless comment about her tears. Greg felt a sense of dread in his stomach.

John cleared his throat slightly.

It was a tiny noise, but just loud enough to catch Sherlock’s attention, who turned to look at him sharply. John shook his head a little.

Sherlock appeared to struggle with himself for several seconds, before he turned back to the body and deduced the identity of the murderer, their motives, and their current whereabouts in one long breath before wrapping his coat more securely around himself and striding away. John looked amused, gave Greg a short goodbye, and trotted off after Sherlock, leaving the Detective Inspector standing there, speechless.

Unless he was very much mistaken – and he didn’t think he was – he had just watched Sherlock Holmes hold back a deduction to please another person.

After that first time, Greg began to notice it more and more frequently. Sherlock would be on the brink of a damning comment about someone’s wife, or their mistress, or their child who was going off the rails, when he would stop himself, looking at John, who would always gaze back steadily with a small smile on his lips.

A while passed, and Sherlock didn’t even seem to notice that he was doing it anymore. He would still retort with a cutting remark when someone would insult him, and he occasionally said cruel or hurtful things that left people reeling, but generally he would gaze at someone for a few seconds, clearly making deductions about their entire life history, before turning silently back to the task at hand without saying them out loud. He wouldn’t look at John for approval any more, but John would always be watching him.

Greg brought it up one day as he sat in the pub with John.

“So, what’s your secret?”

“Hm?” John asked, taking a mouthful of beer.

“How do you do it?”

“Do what?” John looked confused now.

“Sherlock. He’s different. He’s not as… Cruel.”

“He’s never been cruel.”

“Oh, you didn’t know him back in the day. People would quake in their boots when he walked up. He was terrifying. He’s… different. Now. I think it’s your influence.”

John frowned, clearly disagreeing.

“Sherlock was never a bad man.”

“No. But you’ve still made him better. You’re the person who’s changed him from a great man to a good one.”

 

**“The Doctor clearly loves the Detective, he just doesn’t know it yet” – Sarah Sawyer**

Sarah walked away from her last date with John, knowing that she had done the right thing in telling him that it just wasn’t working for her any more. He had looked gutted, which surprised her, even though he still agreed that their relationship had come to its natural end.

“It was nice,” Sarah said, “but I don’t think it was right.”

“I agree,” sighed John, “it wasn’t right. It wasn’t right that you had to be dragged along on crime adventures, that you almost got killed. I am sorry, you know, for that.”

“I know. You’ve said it quite a few times. But that wasn’t what I was talking about – I meant it’s not right that…”

What was she going to say? _It isn’t right that you’re dating someone else when you are clearly in love with your insane flatmate who crashes our dates and leads you away without a backwards glance? It isn’t right that every time you see him your eyes light up and your smile widens and you can’t help following him wherever he goes? It isn’t right that I will never, ever, ever be able to replace the man who has worked his way into your heart and claimed it for his own without you even realising?_

Sarah sighed. She couldn’t say any of that.

She mumbled something vague about endings and backed away, hoping that it wouldn’t be too long before John realised what everyone else seemed to know.

 

**“The Detective clearly loves the Doctor… And it’s breaking his heart” – Jessica Holmes**

John was terrified – and it took a lot to do that to an army doctor who had grown up with an alcoholic father on a council estate. It was five days before Christmas and he and Sherlock had been invited to a party at Sherlock’s family’s ‘manor house.’

(“What?” Sherlock had asked irritably when John had raised an eyebrow at the phrase, “it’s what our family has called it for generations).

Nervously, John straightened his tie for the umpteenth time, checking his hair anxiously in the mirror as Sherlock called for him to hurry up. He wasn’t even sure why he was so worried – it was only meeting his flatmate’s family, for god’s sake.

“Alright, _alright_ , I’m coming,” he shouted, opening the door and almost walking into Sherlock, who was standing directly outside the room.

“Come on, let’s go.”

And if Sherlock gave a wistful look at John’s back as his friend walked down the stairs in front of him, nobody was there to see it.

John quickly discovered that Sherlock had got his dramatic flair from his mother. She greeted them with a flamboyant hug and then gestured them into the room, gliding across the polished floor in a long red dress.

“Sherlock is here,” she called loudly to a few relatives, who immediately bustled over to gush over him, and then stepped back to watch her youngest son, who she hadn’t seen in years. He had changed – she knew that as soon as he walked through the door. Mycroft’s reports about his growing relationship with army doctor hadn’t prepared her for the transformed man standing before her.

The last time she had seen him, he had been gaunt, fiercely addicted to drugs and screaming that he never wanted to see her again, and although he had apologised when he got out of rehab she hadn’t seen him face to face since.

He was still the Sherlock she knew, of course – rolling his eyes and scoffing loudly when he heard one of Aunt Edith’s exaggerated stories, flatly ignoring the advances of some of the young women who were milling around him, glaring at Mycroft whenever he got the chance – but there was still something different about him. It took about twenty minutes for her to realise that it was John.

Sherlock had immediately been whisked away by some relatives who wanted to know _all_ about his _dangerous_ lifestyle with the _criminals_ and the _fighting_ and, _oh, the scandal_ , while John chatted amiably with another group, but Sherlock’s eyes would always seek him out and be met with a small smile.

Jessica Holmes sighed as she watched Sherlock’s eyes dull and his face shut down when John began talking to Sherlock’s third cousin, Mary. It was obvious that he liked her, and Sherlock could see it too.

Suddenly, Sherlock looked in his mother’s direction and saw her smiling sadly at him. He diverted his eyes, and walked out the room.

She sighed. She thought that she had always wanted Sherlock to have a heart but, now that she could see it breaking before her very eyes, she wasn’t so sure.

 

**“The Doctor missed the Detective” – Mary Morstan**

Mary held John’s hand at Sherlock’s funeral when he choked and couldn’t speak.

She stood slightly behind him at Sherlock’s grave, staring at the back of the neck of the man who had shattered when his flatmate jumped off of a building.

When John lay awake all night, silent tears falling down his face, Mary lay next to him, unable to cry, because somebody needed to stay strong when everyone, even the soldier, had broken down.

A few days later when John woke from his sleep with a raw scream, she knew what he had been dreaming about, and held him as he sobbed into her shoulder.

After a month, he finally admitted it to himself, and to her.

“I think I loved him,” John whispered.

“I know,” she replied.

And if she had a pang, deep down in her heart, because she knew that she could never give John what he needed to be complete again, she kept it to herself.

Two years after Sherlock’s death, Mary found John crying in the living room, standing in front of the lucky cat she had bought in China on her gap year. He told her he couldn’t do it any more. She nodded silently.

“Any of it. This. Us.”

“I know, John. I’m not what you need.”

And she was gone from his life for ever.

 

**“The Doctor was furious with the Detective” – Mrs Hudson**

Mrs Hudson had been happy for John to move back into 221B after his relationship with Mary ended. She had missed the noise, and the constant bustle of the boys and their clients striding up and down the stairs. For two years the house had been silent, and that had aged her more than anyone could possibly know.

John moving back in made it more like old times. There wasn’t the violin playing in the early hours of the morning, or the bullets in the walls, or the experiments seeping through the ceiling and into her flat, but there was someone to talk to, and sometimes she would forget that she would never see Sherlock Holmes again.

Which was why, a year later, when she opened the door to a rather bedraggled and malnourished consulting detective, it took her a few seconds to realise what she was seeing before she let out a scream and fell to the floor.

“Mrs Hudson?” The door to 221B burst open and John appeared at the top, looking worried. He stopped when he saw Sherlock at the bottom gazing up at him.

“What…? Sherlock?”

“I’ve – I’ve come back, John,” Sherlock’s voice was raw in his throat as he looked at the man who’s safety he had risked everything for. John was thinner, and he had a few more grey hairs, and his jumper was new, but he was still recognisable as the soldier, the doctor, the friend he once was.

John drew himself up to his full height, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Sherlock,” he said quietly through gritted teeth, “I am going to come downstairs and help Mrs Hudson and I want you to leave by the time I get down there or _so help me god I will strangle you to death._ ”

His voice had gradually risen until he was loud enough to wake Mrs Hudson, who immediately let out a cry when she saw Sherlock.

“Sherlock… Why did you leave?”

He helped her back up.

“They threatened you, Mrs Hudson. You, and Greg, and… John.”

As he said his name, Sherlock looked up at John. His gaze was met with barely concealed fury.

“Please, John,” Sherlock pleaded quietly, and lifted a hand towards him. John swore and slammed the door. A few seconds later they heard a crash of a plate flying across the room and hitting the wall and a loud thump as John slumped against the door.

“He’ll be fine,” Mrs Hudson said, looking up at Sherlock’s downcast face, “he just needs a little time. He’s angry, it wouldn’t be a good idea to disturb him now.”

When she offered Sherlock tea and biscuits, he accepted, following her into her flat without realising how much it meant to the woman who thought she had lost the man she considered to be her son.

 

**“The Detective and the Doctor saved each other” – Sherlock Holmes and John Watson**

Later, John would say that it was uncertainty that brought him to Mrs Hudson’s door. He needed to know that Sherlock really was alive, that he hadn’t imagined the whole incident on the stairs, that the man he loved was back in his life.

Sherlock would say that it was guilt about what John had suffered that had led him to spill the entire story to him at Mrs Hudson’s door, speaking for half an hour about secret circles and codes and assassins, his eyes never leaving John’s.

John would say that it was fury that made him punch Sherlock in the face, and love that made him pull Sherlock back up off the floor and kiss him.

Sherlock would say that it was hay fever that made him cry when John made him a cup of tea in 221B for the first time in three years, but John knew that it was relief.

John would say that it was anger that made him turn down Sherlock’s invitation to accompany him to crime scenes again, but it was guilt at Sherlock’s disappointed face that made him run after him, grabbing his shoulder and declaring his love for him on a crowded street.

Sherlock would say that it was adrenaline that made him grab John in front of the whole metropolitan police force and kiss him when John made a link in the case before anyone else.

John and Sherlock would say that it was happiness that pieced them back together and saved them all over again.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm quite proud of myself for writing something that's over 5000 words. That's a record for me and my impatience.


End file.
